Yesterday, I was at the MRT station when I spotted this interesting poster. Coincidentally, at that point of time i was rather troubled as to what should I post on my blog this week. Despite wanting to change my topic from the society to perhaps something more personal, I found myself back to point one- the society because I feel that bringing up social issue would enable readers to relate more and most importantly, it really interest me. No link has been provided to shown the poster but I will snap a shot of the photo and upload it maybe later in the week.
This poster that captures my attention was divided into three parts- the first part, it shows this baby sleeping very soundly and sucking his pacifier. The second part illustrates that this baby was woken up by the ringing tone of a commuter. Irritated, the baby actually threw his milk bottle at this commuter and the crowd was laughing at this humorous sight, which marks the last part of the poster. Within the cartoon, there was no captions or speech printed yet, people who spotted this poster will still be able to grasp the whole idea of the poster. I believed that the poster intend to inform commuters to be considerate to the people around by maybe switching their phone to silent mode (deemed to illustrate here) so that they will not disturb the others who might be resting in the train.
I believed this non-linguistic poster is to highlight to the public in an interesting and exaggerating way of the possible consequences when one's phone disturb the other commuters. Of course, this is only my perception of that poster. The meaning of the poster perceived is rather subjective as it depends on the context and the individual people viewing it. This poster works in a receiver-oriented manner of communication whereby the receiver will attach meaning to the nonverbal cues given in the poster. Viewers of the poster shall interpret the poster according to their perception. The artist of this poster drew the poster in a way where the targeted audience will understand the poster immediately as the hidden message is something that we are familiar with. The poster serves as a substitute for verbal communication because instead of telling the commuters verbally, the train provider actually paste this poster within the station to inform the public to be considerate. In this case, instead of using the loudspeaker to remind the commuters to be considerate by switching their phone to the silent mode, the poster complement it yet was able to convey the idea to the public in an interesting way.
Another interesting, non-verbal communication that took place within the same poster is when the baby threw his milk bottle at the inconsiderate commuter. Babies do not know how to communicate verbally thus their actions serves as a form of communication to the people. In this case, the baby threw his bottle out of frustration for being woken up in his sweet dreams (perceived as seen from the first part that he was smiling while sleeping).
Thus,it is seen that communicating with one another need not necessary be in verbal form. Non-verbal such as this poster will also serve as a communication tool for people. I perceived non-verbal communication as important because it provides us with more options when we want to convey our ideas instead of just talking verbally which might be disruptive at times. No doubt, non-verbal communication leads to miscommunication because the way people interpret message differs. Thus, i believed that it is only advisable to use non-verbal communication when the idea is something that can be easily recognised by the targeted crowd.
